These are a few of my favourite things!

Best way to keep one cheerful. Eat your favourite food!!

I have lived in various States of India, with friends from different cultures and here are a few of my favourite dishes that I’ve picked from everywhere.

Lets start with Avial from my schooling days in Neyveli, the best years! This I learnt from tamilians, although it is supposedly a kerala dish. It’s a healthy dish of cooked vegetables in a yogurt base with coconut, green chillies and a dash of coconut oil. Goes well with steamed rice.

The sweet dish of Puttu, made with either white or red rice coarsely powdered, with jaggery and coconut is an authentic dish. This also shares ownership from the mallus and tamils.

My undergrad days in Bengaluru, ever-hungry hostel days, perpetually broke! I loved this rice specialty from my kannada friends, Bisibelehulianna. Bisi means hot, bele means dal, huli means tamarind, and anna means rice. So it is a version of the khichdi but the spices here are essentially south indian. Hence a different taste altogether.

The sweet dish, called Pheni is another of my favourites. I do not know how it’s made. It is a crunchy dish, just buy it and pour warm milk on it!

Next I moved back with parents and pampering, back to our township life again, this time in Western Coalfields in Nagpur. Loved the Aloo Parathas from Punjabi friends, the Puran Poli from the Maharashtrian ones. Strangely, they are both quite similar to each other - One with spicy potato filling, the other with sweetened dal filling. 

Puran poli has many equivalents from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu each out beating the other in taste. The fillings vary too.

From Maharashtra started my travels along the Indian Coast as the wife of a Coastguard Engineer! At Kolkata, I loved the Mishti doi which is set curd made of thickened milk. 

At Port Blair, supplies were always so limited. Yet enjoyed making whatever I could with whatever was available. We would get lot of Yam, bitter gourd and raw banana in the military rations. So experimented and made Yam Vadas (Kandha vada in telugu), stuffed karela and raw banana koftas!! 

Recipes from mom and friends.

Now am stationed at Chennai since almost 20 years, my travels are now more of short holidays.

Picked up lot of stuff from here and there, but I have to end here. Before that, how can this post be complete without my very own telugu dishes?

Avakaya pickle with Podi and ghee with steamed rice is an anytime favourite, needless to say. 

The andhra all-time specialty is the Pesarrattu, which is a dosa made of green gram and rice served with ginger chutney.

My favourite sweet is the traditional boorelu. This is jaggery and cooked channa dal mash as the filling with an outer covering of rice-urad dal dough and deep fried. It is very tricky to make.

That’s it, folks! Bon Appetit!!😋

Pictures Courtesy:The friendly neighbourhood 'internet' 😉😁